Chapter 17Quality Management

Quality – the operations' view, the customer's view (p. 498)+ Figure 17.3 (p. 498)• Reconciling the operation's and customer's views of quality (pp.498-499)• Diagnosing quality problems, page 501• Conformance to specification (pp.502-508)

Quality – the operations' view, the customer's view, pp.498

Quality-Operations viewQuality is consistent conformance to customers expectations.Conformance implies the need to meet clear specification( manufacturing approach).consistent means conformance to specification is not on ad hoc basis.

Quality – customers view• Every individual customers have different expectations from a

product. Individual knowledge and history shapes its expectations.

Quality should be understood from customers view point because the to the customer quality of a product or service is whatever he/she perceive it to be.• E.g some perceive cars as a status symbol; another may

perceive it as an expensive mean of getting home from work. example of P-498

Customers’ expectations

for the product or

service

Customers’ perceptions

of the product or

service

Gap

Expectations > perceptions

Expectations = perceptions

Expectations < perceptions

Perceived quality is governed by the gap between customers’ expectations and their perceptions of the product or service

Gap

Perceived quality is poor Perceived quality is good

Perceived quality is acceptable

Customers’ expectations

for the product or

service

Customers’ perceptions

of the product or

service

Customers’ expectations

for the product or

service

Customers’ perceptions

of the product or

service

Fig 17.3-Pecieved quality is governed by the magnitude and direction of the gap between customers expectations and their perceptions of the product/service

Diagnosing quality problems, page 501

• Gap 1:- the Gap between customers specification and operations specification. between what customers expect and what managers think they expect –Clearly survey research is a key way to narrow this gap.

• Gap 2:- the Gap between the concept specification.

• Gap 3:- the gap between the quality specification and actual quality

• Gap 4:- The actual quality gap and communicated image gap.

The operation’s domain

Management’s concept of the

product or service

The customer’s

domain

PreviousExperience

Word of mouth communications

Image of product or service

Customers’ own specification of

quality

Organization’s specification of

quality

The actual product or serviceGap 1

Gap 2Gap 3

Gap 4

A ‘Gap’ model of Quality

Customers’ expectations concerning a

product or service

Customers’ perceptions

concerning the product or service

Gap ?

Conformance to Specification – P.502 - 508

Conformance to specification means producing a product or providing a service to its design specification. It is the responsibility of operation management to make to the customer perception of quality.. It can be achieved by six sequential steps.

1. Define the quality characteristics of product/service2. Decide how to measure each quality characteristics3. Set the quality standards fro each quality characteristics4. Control the quality again these standards5. Find and correct use of poor quality6. Continue to make improvement.

1. Define Quality characteristics:- the consequences of quality planning and control of the design are called quality characteristics. Such as functionality, appearance, reliability, durability, recovery and contact. (Table 17.1)2. How to measure each characteristics:- the defined quality characteristics should be measureable and controllable such as in case of appearance its hard to define so it needs to break down as “ color match” surface finish” no of visible scratches. For example the courtesy of airline staff is hard to quantify so airlines place a great deal of importance to ensure courtesy in their staff. There are two types to describe the quality characteristics as variable( it can be measures on continuous variable scale e.g length, diameter, weight or time) and attributes ( it can be assed by judgment e.g right /wrong, good/fair/poor). (Table 17.2)3. Set quality standards:- after identifications of quality characteristics it can be measured against the quality standards. The quality standards is the level of quality which defines the boundaries between acceptable or not acceptable.4. Control quality against those standards:- after setting the standards operations needs to check product/service to to those standards. It needs three important decisions.First, where in operations they should check that it is confirming to standards.Second, should they check every product/service or take a sampleThird, how should the check be performed.5 and 6. Find and correct the causes of poor quality and continue to make improvements.